0D: HUMAN ERROR

Artemis would like to hate Cass. It would make everything so much easier. But unfortunately, she doesn't think she can manage it.

She thinks it over, while she washes her face in the bathroom and tries to fix her make-up. It's very tempting, hating Cass. She's been working with them, whoever they are; she got her arrested that night. Just like Emilia said, someone tipped off the cops: Cass called her aunt called the station. Cass is one of the reasons that this awfulness keeps following her.

But she also picked her up after she fell apart just now and took her back to the Centre. And she was genuinely delighted that Artemis won against Blaine. And she changed her mind and told her everything and – and she's just a nice person. Not very tactful, maybe, and sort of naïve, but nice.

Or maybe she isn't, Artemis reminds herself. Maybe all that was a lie too.

She sighs and unbends from over the sink. She can't do it, she just can't. Perhaps she isn't cut out for hate.

Either way, she's going to have to talk to her eventually. So. Time to get her head together and go back out there.

Cass is sitting on her bed, fiddling nervously with her bracelets and watching Ringo bashing his toy kabuto against the pillow.

"Hey," she says. "You feeling better?"

Artemis nods.

"I guess."

A silence without grace or warmth. Artemis sits down on her own bed, not wanting to be tall.

"So," she says. "I … I guess I should tell you what's going on."

"Like you don't have to," Cass tells her. "I mean – I did kinda lie to you. A lot. And spy on you for the government."

Artemis shakes her head.

"I don't … I dunno. Were you lying about being nice to me?"

It's hard to get the words out. Part of the reason that this hurts is that Artemis has in fact suspected people of this in the past, of faking their affection for her for sinister ends, and while it has always turned out to be a delusion the fact that it really has happened now seems like a horrible kind of vindication.

"Um …"

Cass' hesitation hurts even more. Artemis finds herself hunching, twisting away from her.

"No, no," cries Cass, face reddening. "Not like that, I mean – I dunno, maybe I wouldn't have hung out with you if my aunt hadn't told me to, but … you're cool." She shrugs awkwardly. "Like I expected to have to fake it, especially when I … when we first met, but then it turned out I didn't have to, you know? Once I actually started talking to you, I liked you. That's kinda why I felt bad about it, and I guess – I guess today, with the Gym and everything, you won so convincingly and you looked like you were too scared to admit it in case it somehow turned out to not be true, and like when I saw that I just thought I really couldn't lie to that kinda person any more."

So Artemis is that easy to see through after all. She overestimated herself. Or maybe she underestimated Cass; clearly she's more observant than she lets on.

She doesn't know what to say. Is she meant to judge Cass based on her original motives, or the actual kindness she stumbled her way into? It's so much more complicated than it's supposed to be – but then, everything always is, right, so what did she expect? It's like home, or her brain, or her body, or the League. Nothing is ever generous enough to mean just one thing.

She sighs.

"I dunno if I forgive you," she says at last. "But I think we're friends. So. You know."

"That's … fair," says Cass. "That's fair. And, um, I'm glad. I thought we were friends too."

Another silence. This one feels a little less threatening, and deep in the pit of it Artemis finally makes up her mind.

"Okay," she says. "So like I said, I'm gonna tell you what happened."

Cass is, to put it mildly, floored.

"What."

"Yeah," says Artemis. "Me too, I guess."

She said everything, in the end, or everything relevant, anyway; she left out her reasons for leaving home and started with the trip out to the woods with Jerry. Probably Cass has guessed about the rest of it, anyway, considering how easily she seems to have figured Artemis out.

Cass shakes her head, open-mouthed.

"I mean … I mean really?"

"Yeah," says Artemis. "Really."

"Okay. Yes. Sorry, I believe you, it's just … wow. What the hell."

"It's okay. It's pretty weird."

"Yeah, you can say that again." Cass pauses, and when she speaks again she sounds more present. "Okay. Okay, so I guess the question is what now."

Artemis nods. For some reason it feels hard to weigh in on this.

"I mean I – I guess if that diary is for real we should go find Dr Fuji?" Cass suggests. "Or tell that League lady about him? Or like – like maybe not, I dunno, it all sounds so ridiculous when I say it. But like it's real. It just doesn't feel that way."

"Yeah, I know. I …" Artemis thought she had more, but as it turns out she doesn't. It feels so strange for this to finally be out of her head, in the real world, affecting other people. Almost as strange as if Cass started seeing the ghost people.

"Or maybe you don't want to talk about that right now," says Cass. "God, I'm sorry, I'm rushing things, aren't I? Let's not … let's just not." She pauses, takes a breath. "Okay. Let's go get Brauron, and then this time let's not screw around with ice cream, let's just get a damn drink."

She means it. She does, doesn't she? She means it, because she's nice, and that's both why she decided to oblige her aunt and why she's decided to jump ship now. There's no malice there. Or okay, there might be, there always might be, but being logical (difficult as that might be), there probably isn't.

"That – that sounds like a plan," says Artemis, speaking over the tumult in her head, trying to silence it. "Um. Cass?"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks."

Cass looks serious and shakes her head.

"Nah, I think I owe you pretty big," she says (and means it? Or not?). "Come on, I'm buying."

Downstairs, Brauron is ready to go: still sleepy, but the bite marks on her tail are fading with supernatural speed. By tomorrow morning, there won't even be scars, although Artemis is told she should take it easy for a little while, to let her recover her energy. She says okay and takes her back eagerly, settling her against her chest in the crook of her arm, where she promptly falls asleep.

"God, she is just super cute, huh," observes Cass. "Ringo, are you taking notes? This is how you endear yourself to people."

He squawks and nips at her ear.

"Yeah, okay buster, I love you too."

It's not hard to find an open bar here, even at this time of day; this is holiday season, and a huge number of people are currently present in Cinnabar looking for fun. Cass buys two colourful-looking cocktails of dubious composition in a seafront bar occupied by a number of young tourists determinedly filling themselves with holiday spirit, and sits with Artemis at a table outside, away from the noise.

"To, uh, weird shit," says Cass, raising her glass. "And being honest."

Artemis raises her own glass back, and they drink.

"'S nice," remarks Cass, smacking her lips. "I have no idea what it's supposed to taste like, but I like it."

"Mango," says Artemis, relieved to have something she can be certain of for once. "And lime. Not sure what else. It is nice, though, you're right."

A slow, restful minute without words. On the beach below, kids shout and run back and forth, playing with growlithe and house-pinsir: two of Kanto's most popular pets, along with meowth. Beyond them, the water is thick with splashing holidaymakers. Only a few of the growlithe will go more than a foot or so in, but the pinsir seem to like it, bobbing around on the water's surface like huge thorny corks. As Artemis watches, one dives underwater and comes up holding a starfish gently in between its massive horns. It examines it carefully for a moment, poking at it with clawed hands, and then places it delicately on its head, like a hat.

"Hey," she says, pointing. "See that pinsir?"

"That is just adorable," says Cass, following her finger. "We had a pinsir when I was a kid. He was really sweet, although there was this one time he gripped too hard climbing a tree and accidentally cut it down." She glances at Artemis. "What about you? Any pets?"

No, Artemis has never had a pet. They are expensive, for one thing. And for another, she has been too ill for too long: while she had leukaemia, nobody in her family had the time or inclination to take on even more responsibility, and then after that terrible night and the intervention of the mental health crisis team, nobody trusted her to look after anything anyway, not even herself. But this is a long and tedious story that will just alienate Cass and force her to feel sorry for her, so instead Artemis just shakes her head.

"No, none," she says. "Just never happened."

"Okay," Cass replies. "That's fine too."

Sip, and stare. The edges of the waves glitter where the sun catches them. Far out to sea, a speedboat zooms over the water. Curled up in Artemis' lap, Brauron snuffles in her sleep.

Whatever your opinion of Cass, you can't deny she knows how to relax. Artemis feels like something inside her is melting in the summer heat and the buzz of the alcohol in her head. It's not a bad feeling in the slightest.

"I think I should call Emilia," she says, after a few minutes. "I'm not sure I should really try and solve this one on my own."

Cass nods.

"One correction," she says. "You're not sure we should be trying to solve it on our own."

Artemis smiles, disbelieving, touched. Cass betrayed her: that's not something she can deny, nor that Artemis can forget. But she seems like she wants to make up for it. And given how thoughtless she can be, Artemis thinks she might just mean it.

"Really?"

"Sure," says Cass. "I mean, I think I'm involved anyway, since my aunt set me up and all. I might as well be involved on the right side, y'know?"

"You think mine is the right side?"

"That's usually how these things go down, right? Secret government conspiracy equals bad guys, plucky young trainer equals good guys."

"… 'plucky'?"

"Hell yeah, plucky! I mean, I think. I'll admit I'm not a hundred per cent sure what it means, but I'm like pretty sure you've got it. Whatever it is."

Artemis has to laugh at that. She means it, doesn't she? And – well, Artemis will be watching her closely. If she doesn't mean it, she'll figure it out this time, and then maybe she'll learn how to hate.

"O-kay," she says. "I'll take it as a compliment."

"Neat." Cass beams. "So. Let's sit here, drink these drinks and maybe a couple more, and then … then let's call your League lawyer and see what we do next."

"You got it," says Artemis. "Cheers."

They clink glasses across the table. Brauron sticks her head up at the sound, suddenly alert.

"Well, look who's back with us," says Artemis, booping her affectionately on the nose. "Sleep well?"

Brauron licks her eyes and holds out her arms expectantly, waiting to be picked up.

"Guess that's a yes, then," says Artemis, hugging her gently to her chest. "C'mere, you."

Warm light and a cold drink. The beach, the water. Cass. Ringo. Brauron hot against her heart, like a shard of summer.

There's danger ahead for sure. Giovanni is out there, and so are the monsters. But there's a trainer journey too, with friends and companions and everything that entails.

Artemis is not brave, is on some deep level as scared as ever; she doesn't even know if she trusts everyone she's sitting here with. But right this second, at this table in this wash of sunlight, she is at peace. And that, for now at least, is all she could really ask for.

There's not a lot left to do in Cinnabar – honestly, sending Emilia was probably overkill; the only reason she can think of to have her personally oversee this one was because she already knew about breach – but Emilia doesn't leave right away. This is partly because she's waiting for the right moment to ask Blaine if one of his trainers will fly her back (another ferry ride is not high on her to-do list) and partly because, although no evidence has yet come up to suggest it, she has a sneaking suspicion that somehow, Artemis is involved.

It's not easy to come up with a way to find out for sure, however. She can't get into the Fuji Labs to ask if anyone answering to her description has been seen there, and when she drops in at the Pokémon Centre, all the clerk can tell her is that she is definitely still staying there, and that she won her first badge earlier today. This is impressive – training is a slower process than people realise, and most people aren't capable of beating a Leader without at least a couple of months of work – but it's not very helpful. Emilia smiles and nods and goes out again, silently cursing her luck.

About the only other option she has is trying to do a trace, and the Labs are still in lockdown while the police force's psy officers sweep the place for ghosts. It's very sensible, and Emilia can't fault them for doing it; members of the gengar family can spread out their gaseous bodies so thin they become effectively invisible, or concentrate themselves to fit into the tiniest crevices. Still, it's hard to have patience when she knows that all of it is completely unnecessary. Hopefully she'll be able to get in tomorrow. Which means another night on this island, unfortunately, but if that's what it takes to work out if Artemis is involved, then that's what she'll have to do.

It feels important that she do this. After their conversation the other day, Emilia is aware that she now has a kind of responsibility for Artemis' wellbeing. It isn't just the trans thing, either, although that's part of it. It's the fact that Artemis confided in her. She gave Emilia the information about Giovanni in the belief that Emilia could help, and now it's Emilia's responsibility to make sure that belief was not unfounded.

So Emilia tells herself, anyway. She sits in the smoky cocktail lounge of the only hotel she could find a room at – the very same room in the very same hotel, in fact, that she stayed in a couple of nights ago; the clerk at the desk recognised her and she had to smile and say something about business being weird – and drinks lemonade restlessly, waiting for the time to pass. These are the moments Emilia hates most, when there is nothing left to be done, no thinking or planning or manoeuvring. In these moments she has no work to do, and Emilia is too sharp not to know that she is guilty of substituting her job for a personality: without a task, she just sort of sits there, like an inactive robot.

It's her own simile. If anyone else pointed this out, she'd be offended. Coming from her, however, it just seems like common sense.

She sighs and checks her watch again. Not even seven. There's a long way to go yet before she might be able to fall asleep. A brief look around the room turns up nothing of particular interest; it's full of people and pokémon, doing people and pokémon things, but the thing is that Emilia watches people for her day job, and so people-watching has never really been her idea of a good recreational activity.

Just then, as if the universe itself is taking pity on her, her phone rings.

"Oh thank god," she murmurs, getting up and walking out to find somewhere quieter. "Yes? Emilia Santangelo speaking."

"Um, hi."

Emilia stops, right there in the doorway to the foyer. Someone bumps into her and swears and she hardly even notices.

"Hello, Artemis," she says slowly. "I wasn't expecting to hear from you so soon."

"I guess I wasn't expecting to call you, either." Artemis hesitates. "I … I'm really sorry, I didn't tell you everything."

"No?" Emilia heads out through the open doors into the hotel's inner courtyard. There are still people here, but not as many; it doesn't get much light at this time of day. "That's all right, Artemis. What exactly is the matter?"

"It's – well, um, it's that diary."

Nadia helpfully dials up the memory, but Emilia is one step ahead of her. She's already remembered, and moreover she's seen where this is going.

"That diary," she repeats. "Not your diary?"

"Yeah," says Artemis. "Sorry, I didn't really mean to – I mean it was a weird night, and – and I hadn't even read it yet, so …"

"Hang on a second, Artemis. Slow down." Emilia finds a quiet corner and leans against a wall, in the shadow of a potted palm. "You found it in Cinnabar House, is that it?"

"Yeah. It belonged to Dr Fuji. You know, the dinosaur guy?"

"Yes, the dinosaur guy." Emilia glances at Nadia: is this the link? Nadia looks back and broadcasts uncertainty. "What have you found?"

"It's kinda unclear, but like they were doing breach research in there," Artemis tells her. "And they made something? I think another breach entity, like one they thought they could control. But it broke out, and then … then they died. Except Dr Fuji. It left him alive for some reason, and then I think he went to Lavender."

Pause. She hasn't told Emilia anything that she doesn't already know. Perhaps it hasn't occurred to her that Emilia might have worked on that incident. Then again – there's something there, isn't there? Something Emilia hasn't yet considered. She thinks back over the last couple of days, trying to work out what it is she's sensing, but this time Nadia gets there first, and replays a snippet of her conversation with Lorelei:

Giovanni, he'd been heading it from the beginning … they were the ones behind the M entity.

"That's it," she mutters. "So if he was there from the start, he must have …"

Nadia caws, a noise she almost never makes and which she saves for her most extreme disapproval.

FURRET MAN, she seethes. Emilia can sense her memories behind the words, a jumble of near-incomprehensible avian pain and shock. The M entity was their first case working together, and even now, ten years on, it's probably still the bloodiest. Talk about a baptism of fire.

I know, Emilia thinks back at her. I know.

"Hello?" asks Artemis nervously. "Are you still there?"

"Yes, Artemis, my apologies. I just had to speak to my partner for a second."

"Nadia?"

Emilia is surprised, and Nadia is, despite her anger, delighted. Nobody ever remembers her name.

"Yes, Nadia. She wanted to remind me of something. I learned recently in the course of my own investigation that Giovanni was in charge of the project at Cinnabar House."

"So – wait, you knew about it?"

"Yes, of course. I didn't know that it was breach until I started digging a few weeks ago, but I knew some entity had broken containment there." Emilia stops there: Artemis doesn't need to know any more than that, for now at least. She'd like to be totally honest with her, but if this is going to work then Artemis has to have some faith in her, and telling her that she's the one who led that cover-up is not the way to earn that faith. She'll tell her later, she promises herself. Just … not now. "It was quite a big deal back then. A lot of League personnel died. We had to respond."

"Oh." Artemis sounds – well, she sounds like she feels bad for not having realised this already, which is not ideal, but it's better than hostility. "I – I guess that makes sense."

"Yes," says Emilia slowly, thinking things through. Fuji could well know something that might shed light on Giovanni's current activities. Because that's the thing that's been bothering Emilia most: what exactly is he trying to do here? He's a League man, to the bone. He's politically conservative and a staunch believer in Kantan law and institution, and the email from Abigail Grahame confirms that ROCKETS has some pro-Kantan agenda – all that stuff about children's children and so forth. So he's not after chaos or fear; he wants to control breach, somehow, for Kantan benefit. It's that somehow that's key. If Fuji can offer any guidance there, that could prove extremely useful: you can't counterattack if you don't know what moves your opponent is making.

But the thing is (because of course, there's always something else), Fuji does not exactly care for the League these days. He was extremely uncooperative in the aftermath of the M entity incident, and frankly Emilia does not blame him. If League lawyers knock on his door asking questions, he's going to clam up tighter than an anxious shellder.

Which means … well. There is one way around that. And while Emilia would prefer it if Artemis stayed safely out of this, the truth is that she is already much too deep in it for there to be any hope of her escaping now. Besides, there shouldn't be anything dangerous about talking to one retired geneticist. Should there? No. There shouldn't.

"All right," she says. "All right, Artemis, here is a hypothetical suggestion, and I want to stress that it is only hypothetical; I'm sure you know that I really can't encourage any investigation you might want to undertake on your own. I might be able to find Dr Fuji's address in our records. And I might be able to go and speak to him and ask him if he knows anything about all of this. But he wouldn't respond very well, because after what happened ten years ago he is understandably suspicious of League agents. But if I, while I was dropping into the Pokémon Centre, were to accidentally leave his address there … someone else might theoretically be able to find him and ask those questions."

A short pause.

"I see," says Artemis. She sounds afraid. Emilia waits, but apparently that's all.

"It's only a possibility," she says. "And if nobody picked up that address and found Dr Fuji – well, then the investigation would continue anyway, because it's already started. The League's internal review team is probably questioning Giovanni right now."

"It is?"

There is a trembling kind of hopefulness in Artemis' voice that makes Emilia angry in the same way she was the other night, when she got to the station and saw how scared she was. It's an old anger, the vicious sublimated fear of an anxious person who sees the size and ineluctability of the system pointing the gun at her head, and one she thought she had left behind with her old life, all those years ago. She shakes her head, trying to think her way through it, and says:

"Yes, it is." Pause. Keep it together; count to three. "If it isn't, they've got me to deal with."

"Okay. I mean – yeah, okay." Artemis hesitates. "There's, um … something else."

"Yes?"

"They were, uh, spying on me. Giovanni's people, I mean. The girl I'm travelling with, Cass, she – her aunt asked her to find me in Viridian Forest and report anything weird that happened."

Cass? If Emilia remembers the data from the Oak incident correctly, that would be Cassandra Grah―

"Shit," hisses Emilia, under her breath. Cassandra Grahame. Cassandra Grahame. How the hell did she miss that?

"What was that?"

"Nothing," she says, keeping her voice light. "I was just thinking. So you found out about this how?"

"She told me. She felt bad, she didn't know what was going on. I think I can trust her," Artemis adds defensively, and Emilia nods slowly.

"I'll trust your judgement on that," she says, not knowing if she believes herself. "Why were they spying on you? Do you know that?"

"There's … um, when Giovanni was scanning me, he dropped the instructions for his scanner. I found them on the ground later. I think he was looking for breach radiation? And it said like if you absorb a certain amount of breach radiation, more events are attracted to you, and, uh, I'm really really sorry I didn't say this before but―"

"It's all right," interrupts Emilia, as Artemis' voice begins to rise. "It's all right, Artemis, I don't blame you. I'm League, it's only natural you wouldn't trust me." She pauses, hears Artemis sniff. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Thanks."

"You're very welcome." Emilia considers, tapping her heel against the wall. "If that's true," she says, "then it feels to me like Giovanni and his team set this up."

"They did?"

"Yes. First they trigger a breach event. They don't know where it will happen, or how, but it takes place and irradiates a witness. Next, Giovanni confirms that the irradiation took place, using his position as Leader to explain why he was out in the woods. After that, all they have to do is keep an eye on where you're going with your friend Cassandra, and they can plot exactly where the next event will occur. That lets them prepare even before the crisis team are mobilised – which in turn means that their mole on the crisis team, Cassandra's aunt, is ready to do whatever it is that Giovanni's people need her to do." Emilia pauses. "She was here today, in fact. I suppose you already know that this was breach."

The silence is very long this time.

"Yeah," says Artemis, in the end. "I … thought it was just a kabutops, but then I saw the video online, and – and that's part of why I had to tell you, because – because it's me, isn't it? Like you said. They're – god, they're using …"

Nadia has to leave Emilia's shoulder for a nearby table: the anger is getting a little too intense for her. Right now, if Giovanni was standing in front of her, Emilia isn't sure she wouldn't just break his nose. This is not right. Fuck the usual channels. Fuck the intricate weaponry of bureaucracy. Some people, says her younger not-Emilia self, just need to get punched in the face.

"I'm sorry, Artemis," she says. "I really am. But we're going to fix this, all right? I promise you, it's going to end. If we stop Giovanni triggering more events, all this goes away."

A little choked noise. A sniff.

"Yeah," says Artemis. "Yeah, okay, I … okay."

"Are you going to be all right?"

"Yes. Yeah, I'm fine, I … Cass is here. I'll be fine."

"Good. I'll visit the Centre tomorrow morning and lose Fuji's address."

"Okay. Okay. We'll, uh, we'll be there."

"Good." Emilia stops to listen for a moment. Artemis seems to be breathing normally now. "All right," she says. "If that's everything, then I'll let you go. I think we both have preparations to make."

"Right. Okay. I'll – I'll see you."

"Bye, Artemis. Good luck."

Emilia stays in position for a moment after the call is over, phone still at her ear. Then, quite suddenly, she lowers it and moves away from the wall in one sharp movement.

She really needs a drink. One would be fine, except that for her one drink comes in a great many instalments, and that's a road she's walked to the end before and knows leads nowhere good.

Instead, she sets her jaw and holds out her hand for Nadia.

"Come on," she says, voice taut with suppressed fury. "Time to go."

Emilia is as good as her word. The next morning, while Artemis and Cass hang around in the little waiting area of the lobby, flicking through phones and the magazines on the table, she comes in and has a brief discussion with the receptionist. This done, she turns around and leaves again, without ever apparently noticing them sitting there in the corner – and, more importantly, leaving a scrap of paper floating to the floor in her wake.

Artemis retrieves it and looks at the closing doors.

"Excuse me," she says, aware that the receptionist is watching. "I think you dropped …"

Outside, Emilia is already halfway down the road. Artemis steps out of view for a moment, tucks the paper into her sleeve, and then goes back inside. She and Cass wait around for a few minutes longer, and then Artemis sighs and puts her phone away.

"Okay, we've wasted enough time," she says. "Guess we should get going."

The two of them shoulder their backpacks, pick up their pokémon and go. If the receptionist notices anything, he doesn't mention it.

"So what's it say?" asks Cass, once they're out in the street.

"42 Chesswood Road," reads Artemis. "Lavender, Venderfell Riding, 44-Q6-21."

"Well, looks like we got ourselves a destination," says Cass. "I guess we go find that boat, then."

Last night, after Artemis had calmed down a little, they looked up the fastest ways to get to Lavender. The commercial ferry to Vermilion is a given, and after that they can speed up a little, taking trains to get them the rest of the way within the day. Neither of them suggested hiking. Somehow, without it ever actually being said, both understand that as of today, their trainer journeys are on hiatus. Artemis worries about this, about the way her one year of freedom is steadily being eaten into by more sinister concerns, but she is too much aware that something more is at stake to voice her concerns.

It does sting. She can't deny it. Artemis has given up a lot of things because of the concerns of others: she likes history and art, but studies sciences; she is a daughter, but plays the son. Her trainer journey is the one thing she refused to give up, no matter what her parents thought of it, and now she's going to shelve that too, because once again there's something more important to think about than what would make her happy.

At least this time it's her own decision. She wants to speak to Fuji as much as anyone else. Or no, actually she's terrified of speaking to Fuji and opening a window onto the horror of ten years ago, so it would be more accurate to say she needs to do it, to get to the bottom of all the lies and misdirection. Emilia can stop Giovanni. She promised. And to stop him, she needs information, and Artemis can get it for her.

She thinks about this as they make their way through town to the docks on the north coast, to a soundtrack of Cass' endless conversation.

"… which reminds me, buster, you and me need to work on mirror move some more," she's telling Ringo, while he busies himself shaking his kabuto around and watching its legs wiggle. "I'm pretty sure you've nearly got it down now."

Artemis isn't sure how she keeps it up, but she's grateful for it. Cass' chattering is like an anchor, something defiantly real and solid in the middle of all the strange fever-dream events of the past few weeks, and listening to it Artemis finds herself drifting back from the brink of dissociation.

"I guess there'll be time on the boat," she says. "It's two nights to Vermilion."

"Yeah, I know." Cass shakes her head. "I kinda wish we'd found out about all this when we were somewhere other than the most isolated town in Kanto. Now we just gotta wait. Y'know?"

"Yeah," says Artemis. "I know."

At the ferry terminal, Artemis gets tickets while Cass calls her aunt. They have both agreed that they can't let Giovanni's people know that Cass is no longer on their side, although they don't quite see eye to eye on what they should do about it. Cass floated the idea of feeding them false information about their movements; Artemis thought that this would only reveal that Cass has switched sides, as soon as the next breach event turns out not to be in the place where she supposedly is. Besides, whether they're bad people or not, they are the ones most qualified to deal with breach events, and if one takes place then she'd prefer it if the experts came to contain it. In the end, Cass decided just to keep reporting for now, and see if the situation changes.

This matters. It's evidence that she means what she says about taking Artemis' side, and even though Artemis wanted to believe her before, it helps to have something she can point to as proof. It's not much – she is still reporting, after all; who knows what her motivations are – but it's something, and somethings are what she needs right now, as she wades through the messy swamps of possibility.

The Vermilion-bound ferry is much bigger than the one on the Pallet route: it has space for three decks of cars, and pedestrian passengers like Cass and Artemis have to sit around in the big lounge at the bow while people drive on and park. It's not an unpleasant wait. The lounge is spacious and fitted out with not just comfortable chairs but a fully stocked bar, and its front wall is composed of huge sheets of glass that give an incredible view of the jewel-green ocean beyond. Artemis finds this perspective on the sea more comfortable than the one you get from the deck. Since she's inside, that yawning emptiness seems less apparent.

She sits there and plays with Brauron – there is a game she likes where Artemis raises her hands above each other in turn so that she can climb upwards infinitely, and sure her claws scratch up Artemis' palms but a happy Brauron is so cute that it's always worth it – and in fact is so engrossed that she almost doesn't notice when the ferry actually starts moving. It's a good, relaxing few minutes, and then she hears someone sitting a few seats away by the next table asking their friend if they heard about the creepy possessed skeletons and the glow fades.

Breach again. Artemis' fault, of course. Her curse, and she brought it here to Cinnabar. After she saw the video on the Cataphract website – same journalist who wrote the story about Cinnabar House; he seems to be good at exposing League secrets – she went back to the news and checked over and over for anyone hurt or wounded. Fortunately, the cars that got destroyed were parked and empty, and the skeletons moved slowly enough that everybody in their path had time to get away. They weren't vicious. Not like the gyarados, if that really was breach.

It's a small comfort – Artemis is still responsible for all that property damage; she looked at that aerodactyl and made it come to life – but it is comfort. With breach, she'll take what she can get.

Emilia flips through the morning's news with interest. According to the digest of front pages on the Saffron Times website, pretty much everyone has led with the reanimated fossil story, with the exception of The Daily Meteor and The Flag, one of which has gone with the news that Sabrina Whitmarsh has filed for divorce and the other of which is all about a model that Emilia has never heard of. All seem to be keeping to the official explanation so far, even The Cataphract, which Emilia goes through with particular care. It isn't just that it's usually her main opponent in the chess game of information control; it's also that it's her preferred news vehicle. Suspicion of authority is always a good thing, no matter how hard it makes her job, and Emilia likes journalism that doesn't buy the League's stories.

But not even Mark Trelawney has figured out breach yet, and so even The Cataphract can't do anything other than aggressively question how a ghost that strong was able to slip past the League and get into town. Which is fine; the League has its competency questioned every day and nothing ever really comes of it: everyone knows really that the Indigo League is one of the better ones. They manage to get Johtonians and Kantans to work together, after all, and if you can do that then you're a damn sight more capable than any other branch of government in either nation. Compare that with, say, the Unova League and their handling of the Team Plasma situation, and there really isn't anything to complain about.

With the news firmly under control, it's time for Emilia to leave, and she heads up to the Gym with Nadia to see if someone will fly her back so she can avoid the time and nausea of the ferry. En route, she stops at the Pokémon Centre to lose Fuji's address, and has to try not to smile at Artemis and Cass attempting to be inconspicuous in the corner. It's actually kind of cute how inept they are at this, although it seems uncharitable to think it.

The walk up to the Gym is nice at this time of day, before the heat really builds up; Emilia has lived in Kanto since she was three, when her parents moved out from Rome to follow the boom during the Clairmont government, and she's used to the searing summers – but it feels to her that recently they have been getting even hotter, and she finds herself less able to bear the midday sun than in her youth. It's either age or global warming. Emilia isn't sure which one would be less depressing.

Still, early in the day as it is, the sun is pleasant rather than scorching, and she enjoys her walk up through the olive groves and the lichen-covered boulders. At one point she comes around the corner and sees a royal pidgeot perched on a high rock, trailing a limp beedrill from its beak. Emilia is taken aback at the size of it, so close and so vividly coloured; the pidgeot looks fearlessly back at her and coos so deeply it is almost a growl before kicking away from the rock and soaring up and away around the volcano's flank, trailing its crest like a rainbow comet.

BIG! says Nadia, uncharacteristically emotional, and Emilia has to agree. It's easy to forget that all those pidgey you see pecking around in city streets have the potential to become something as huge and powerful as this. Or almost, anyway. Royal pidgey are a little bigger than the usual kind, if she remembers right.

Up at the Gym, everything is strangely quiet. Training sessions and challenges have been suspended for the day, and many of the staff aren't even in; after a brief chat with the receptionist, however, she learns that Blaine has in fact been expecting her, and while he is currently at the police station to discuss anti-ghost measures that could be put into place, he has left word for someone to fly her back to Saffron.

"He actually said if you didn't come I should email you," the receptionist explains. "Something about not inflicting the ferry on you?"

Emilia smiles. She'd forgotten that Blaine was like this. They haven't seen much of each other since the M entity case ten years ago, but they worked together quite a lot then, and Blaine's the kind of guy who greets literally everyone he sees by name. Of course he would remember.

"Tell him from me that he's too good for the League," she says. "I owe him one."

"He said you'd say that, too. Apparently you don't, because he already owes you for Cinnabar House, whatever that means."

Emilia has to laugh. The guy thinks of everything, doesn't he? He could probably do her job better than she can.

"All right," she says. "I know when I'm beaten. Who do I need to speak to about the charizard?"

Ten minutes later, she's in the air and watching the verdant slopes and bright roofs of Cinnabar fading among the glare of sunlight on waves; charizard are never a comfortable ride, flanks burning your thighs while the wind freezes your head, but it definitely beats sailing, and it's much faster, too. The charizard and his partner, Zac, drop her and Nadia off on the landing zone on top of the Saffron Gym after just a few hours, and though Emilia's legs are somewhat jellified and her hair has been blasted into a huge messy cloud, she is very, very glad to be back among the yellow bricks and glittering high-rises without the intervening pain of twenty hours at sea.

"You," she tells Zac, "are a lifesaver. You too, Rico."

The charizard huffs out hot air and lets her pat his snout. His scales are warm with more than just the sunlight.

"You're okay from here?" asks Zac, but of course Emilia is; she's done this many, many times before. She takes a moment to flatten and tie back her hair, then makes her way back down the staircase bolted to the Gym's wall towards the street, and the comforting anonymity of a Saffron crowd.

Her relief at being home doesn't last, of course: now she's here, she can't help but think of Effie, waiting and slowly dying back up in her apartment, and there are other worries now as well, about Artemis' safety and whether or not she's going to be able to keep that promise she made. It should be okay, it really should, but the stakes are high, and even knowing the odds are in her favour, Emilia is hesitant to play with that kind of risk.

And then, on her way back to her apartment, she gets a call from Lorelei, and her thoughts grind to a sudden and uncompromising halt.

"I'm sorry?" she asks. "Did – what was that?"

"I said, we're dropping the investigation," says Lorelei. "Look, Em, internal review didn't find anything. They went to the ROCKETS site and it was completely empty―"

"So they moved to a new location to avoid detection―"

"―and they didn't get anything out of questioning Giovanni," Lorelei continues, ignoring her completely. "There's nothing. We've got minutes from his meetings at the casinos and his movements are completely accounted for―"

"So he fabricated―"

"―and he pointed out to us that your witness who apparently found him scanning her is recovering from a major psychotic episode, with a history of hallucination and delusive thinking," says Lorelei firmly. "Look, Emilia, I―"

"She's what?"

Emilia is, for once, completely staggered. She stops dead in the middle of the street, so abruptly that someone almost walks into her and yells at her to be careful. It hadn't even occurred to her to doubt Artemis' testimony. Okay, she clearly had anxiety and probably depression too, but – hallucination? Delusions? It just doesn't seem to fit. She seemed like … well, not crazy.

Probably Emilia shouldn't be judging her like that.

"How – how does he even know that?" she asks, dragging her mind back to the phone call. "I – why would he have access to that information unless he was trying to discredit―?"

"Emilia. Em. Listen to me for a moment, would you?" A pause. Emilia shuts up, trying to get her thoughts together before her mouth betrays her again. "Thanks. He knew because we consulted him about the Pewter incident. He did run ROCKETS when it was active, after all. He saw the case files, and apparently he did some research of his own."

"But she – Lorelei, I spoke to her, and I―"

"Emilia, she's psychotic," snaps Lorelei. "And I can't believe you got me to open an investigation on the word of one crazy kid―"

"Lorelei, that is not appropriate," says Emilia coldly, and Lorelei falters, sighs.

"All right," she says. "You're right, I'm sorry. But this investigation is over, Emilia. ROCKETS is finished. Giovanni isn't triggering breach events. That email you found was exactly what it looked like."

"But I found out who the person who sent it was," says Emilia desperately. "Her name's Abigail Grahame, from the crisis team – she had her niece join up with Artemis to spy on her and report breach events to―"

"And who told you that?" asks Lorelei, and Emilia falls silent. Even as she said it, she could hear how much it sounded like paranoia. "God, Emilia, I – look. I don't know what this is, I don't …" She trails off. She sounds tired and confused. Probably it never occurred to her that Emilia might be fallible – that her mentor of all people might get something so spectacularly wrong. Emilia doesn't need Nadia to tell what's going on in her head. "When was the last time you had a holiday?" Lorelei asks her. "Six years ago?"

"What?" Something cold grabs Emilia's heart and squeezes. She is not often afraid, but this? This frightens her, enough to make Nadia restless and uneasy on her shoulder. "Lorelei, what are you …?"

"Look, it's not even legal, working like you do," says Lorelei. "I swear you have fifty-hour weeks and I'm sure you do more even after you get home." She sighs. "Emilia, just take a break, all right? Just for a while. I – I think you need some time off."

"I can't believe you're even saying this," says Emilia. "Lorelei, I'm fine. It's Giovanni who―"

"Listen to yourself! Emilia, I don't want to suspend you but I will if I have to. Take some time. A proper break, a couple of months. Full pay, of course. You need to rest. What you're doing isn't healthy."

Emilia doesn't know what to say. Lorelei is right, it isn't healthy; Emilia has known for a long time that all she really did when she gave up drinking was swap one addiction for another. But it's not the point. She made a promise. And there's so much else at stake, too. So many potential lives to be lost.

"Is this what Giovanni told you to say?" she asks, and Lorelei sighs again.

"Jesus Christ, Emilia, I―"

"Well, did he?"

"He happens to be right!" retorts Lorelei, finally snapping. "Emilia, this is not up for discussion. I'm having your account locked. Don't try to log in, don't try to use your card. If you're not going to be reasonable, I'll just have to suspend you."

"You what?"

"You heard me. I'm not having this discussion with you, Emilia. I'll call you later, when you've calmed down."

"Are you actually going to hang up on―?"

Beep.

Emilia stares at her phone. Around her, the city noises rush in to fill the silence.

"Well, fuck you too, then," she says, her old rough south Celadon accent smashing straight through her bourgeois lawyer voice, and stomps off in the direction of home.